Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, will meet with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Comptroller Thomas Curry to discuss documents relating to alleged mortgage servicer abuses identified as part of the now defunct Independent Foreclosure Review.
“Criminal activity should not be shielded by regulators as if it constitutes proprietary information or trade secrets,” wrote Warren and Cummings.
They added, “We continue to believe transparency is critical around the operations of the review and settlement processes, including the method by which borrower files were reviewed, the violations the servicers are found to have committed, and the scale of those violations.”
In their response to the members’ earlier letter, Bernanke and Curry indicated that as of Dec. 31, more than 100,000 loan files were reviewed by independent consultants engaged by the banks that have since agreed to amend consent orders ending independent foreclosure reviews.
Additionally, $2 billion was spent on such reviews — with nearly $20,000 allocated to each file. That figure is five times higher than the average payout going to homeowners as part of the new settlement.
